Configure a hierarchy of teams
Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019
In Portfolio Management, we explore how management teams and feature teams can use their backlogs to prioritize and focus on the most critical work items. This article helps you configure teams to optimally support the distinct backlog views tailored for both management and feature teams.
Why effective team configuration matters
Effective team configuration is essential for ensuring that each team has a clear and focused view of their responsibilities and priorities. By setting up a hierarchical team structure, you can:
- Enhance collaboration: Foster better communication and teamwork across different functions.
- Streamline workflow management: Simplify processes and reduce bottlenecks.
- Align with organizational goals: Ensure that all teams are working towards common objectives.
- Promote accountability and efficiency: Increase visibility into each team's workload, promoting responsibility and productivity across projects.
Key benefits
- Customized backlog views: Each team can prioritize and manage their work based on their specific goals and responsibilities.
- Improved visibility: Management and feature teams gain clear insights into their respective workloads and progress.
- Enhanced focus: Teams can concentrate on the most critical tasks without getting overwhelmed by unrelated work items.
- Efficient workflow management: Streamlined processes lead to faster decision-making and project execution.
By implementing a hierarchical team structure, you ensure that your organization remains agile, focused, and aligned with its strategic objectives.
Prerequisites
- Project access: Be a project member
- Permissions:
- Be a member of the Project Administrators security group.
Add a team for each management area
The first step is to add a team for each feature team and management area. You can also rename teams that you already added. When you're done, you have a set of teams similar to the ones shown.
- From the web portal, choose Project settings and open Teams.
Choose New team. Give the team a name, and optionally a description.
Repeat this step for all feature and management teams you want to create.
Move area paths into a hierarchical structure
In this step, you want to move the areas paths associated with feature teams from a flat structure to a hierarchical structure.
| Flat area structure | Hierarchical area structure |
|---|---|
 |
 |
To move area paths into a hierarchical structure, do the following steps:
Select (1) Project settings, expand Work if needed, and select (2) Project configuration > (3) Areas.
Next, choose the
actions icon for one of the area paths associated with a feature team and select Edit. Then change the Location to move it under its corresponding management team area path.For example, here we move the Customer Profile to under Account Management.
Repeat this step for all feature team area paths.
Include subarea paths for management teams
By including subarea paths for the management teams, you automatically include the backlog items of their feature teams onto the management team's backlog. The default setting for all teams is to exclude subarea paths.
Note
Sub-area paths may break a team's ability to reorder or reparent items on the backlog. Also, it can introduce uncertainties with regards to assignments made to the board Column, Done, and Lane fields. For more information, see Exercising select features with shared area paths later in this article.
To define both areas and iterations do the following steps:
Select Project settings > Teams, and then choose the team whose settings you want to modify.
Here we open the Account Management team.
Select Iterations and areas > Areas.
To switch the team context, use the team selector within the breadcrumbs.
Choose Select area(s), and select the area path for Account Management and check the Include sub areas checkbox.
Verify that only this area path is selected for the team and is the default area path. Remove any other previously selected area paths.
Repeat this step for all your management areas. If you want to enable rollup across all feature teams and management areas to the top-level area, repeat this step for the default team. In our example that corresponds to Fabrikam Fiber.
Define a single sprint cadence for all teams
If your feature teams use Scrum or use sprints to assign their work, set up a series of sprints that all teams can use. By default, you see a set of predefined sprints. Add more sprints and set their sprint dates from Project Settings as described in Add iterations and set iteration dates. You can rename and edit the default sprints as needed.
Note
While maintaining a single sprint cadence simplifies project administration, you can create different cadences as needed. For example, some teams may follow a monthly cadence while others follow a 3-week cadence. Simply define a node under the top project node for each cadence, and then define the sprints under those nodes. For example:
- Fabrikam Fiber/CY2019
- Fabrikam Fiber/3Week Sprints
Here we define the start and end dates of the first 6 sprints corresponding to a 3-week cadence.
Configure other team settings
For teams to be well defined, add team administrators and have them verify or configure other team settings. For more information, see Manage and configure team tools.
Review area paths assigned to teams
From Project Settings>Project configuration>Areas, you can review which Area Paths are assigned to which teams. To modify the assignments, choose the team and change the team's area path assignments.
Exercising select features with shared area paths
When you share area paths across two or more teams, understand how Azure Boards manages conflicts that can arise when exercising these features:
- Reordering or reparenting work items on a backlog or board
- Updates made to Board column, Board column done, and Board Lane fields when dragging items to a different column
Reordering and reparenting work items
All backlogs and boards support drag-and-drop functionality for reordering and reparenting work items. Changes made in one team's backlogs and boards are automatically reflected in other team backlogs and boards that share the same area path. You might need to refresh the page to see these updates.
Drag-and-drop can only be used to reorder or reparent work items that are assigned to area paths selected for your team. When the Parents view option is enabled, work items that your team doesn't own might appear in your backlog. Any work item marked with the 
information icon can't be reordered or reparented, as another team owns it.
Board column updates
Because each team can customize their board columns and swimlanes, the values assigned to board fields might differ when another team updates a work item from a different board. Even if the management team and the feature teams configure their Feature board columns with identical workflow mappings, updates made to work items on one team's board don't automatically reflect on another team's board. The card column updates consistently across all boards only when a work item moves to a column that maps to a workflow state.
By design, the team with the longest area path takes precedence in resolving conflicts and determines the values for the Board Column, Board Column Done, and Board Lane fields. If two or more teams share area paths of equal depth, the results are nondeterministic.
The primary workaround is to maintain single ownership of work items by defining area paths and assigning them to a specific team. Alternatively, you can add custom workflow states that all teams can use uniformly. For more information, see Customize the workflow (Inheritance process).